On Friday 2nd December we joined the team from Origin Housing to celebrate the Queensgate Art Project!

Queensgate is a new development in the centre of Watford. Earlier this year we were asked by Origin Housing to come up with ways we could encourage residents to think more responsibly about how they looked after their neighbourhood. Problems that were emerging including kids drawing on walls and families not using the waste & recycling bins properly. Our solution was to work with the young people who lived in the neighbourhood to create a series of amazing artworks.
Over a period of six weeks the children living in Queensgate worked with the team from TWC to create three large collages. Each collage was based around the themes of waste, recycling and neighbourliness. At the end of the project the artworks where hung on the walls within the Queensgate block.

The young people and their families really took to the project. Nine months after the project ended there were no new cases of marks on the walls or problems with the rubbish and recycling Jon Foster the Social Investment Manager for Origin said “The

project was a real success. It was great to see a project that was so simple yet worked so well.”

At the celebration event the team from Origin and Together We Create were joined by Cllr Karen Collett, Lead member for Communities on Watford Borough Council.

Come and join the team for an afternoon of craft making and fun. Activities include card making, biscuit decorating along with other fun games Saturday 10th December 1pm- 3pm
It really has been a phenomenal year for Together We Create and the residents of Watermill Lane. We have worked with over 50 young people and their families delivering nearly 200 hours of sessions for residents living on the in the neighbourhood.

Next year we are launching three new projects for Watermill Lane. These are:

‘Planet Play’ structured weekend and afternoon sessions for children aged 5-10 years old.

‘The Leadership Academy’ an invite only program designed to create young leaders of the future.

‘The Community Lunches’, more changes for residents to get together to share food and and make friends.

Join us for our yearly Halloween Festival at Watermill Lane this half term. Between the 24th- 26th October the TWC Team will be running action packed, fun filled workshops for young people living on the Watermill Lane Estate in Enfield. All the sessions are free, supported by funds from Origin Housing Association. If you are a local resident come an join us. For more information email hello@togetherwecreate.org.uk

This summer the TWC Team have teamed up with Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club’s Community Development Team to run free multi-sports sessions for young people living in the Watermills Lane Neighbourhood in Enfield.

Omari Chambers-Alert the Community Development Coordinator for the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation said “Working with young people in the community is a core part of the work we do. We aim to help young people lead healthy and fulfilling lives. Multi-sports is an excellent way of doing this.”

Sarah Hoyle from Together We Create said. “The Team from Spurs have been fantastic.The young people really enjoy the multi sports sessions. The buzz around this project is great!”

Together We Create have been delivering sessions at the Watermill Lane for over a year in conjunction with Origin Housing Association . Jade Hughes from Origin said: “Our residents really love getting involved with different projects and events. We love working in partnership with local organisations”

The next multi-sports sessions at Watermill Lane take place on the 18th and 19th August between 11am – 2pm. The sessions are free to all children living locally and are open to both boys and girls aged 7-17.

In July 2016 Together We Create embark on a new partnership with Southern Housing at Jubilee Court in Bracknell, Berkshire. Working across the summer (July – September) the team will be collaborating with residents to run a series of community lead workshops. These workshops build towards the creation of art for the communal lounge at Jubilee Court.

The project has three phases:

1) Fun resident engagement; a chance for residents from across the neighbourhood to interact and get to know one another. This will also provide the opportunity for residents to share stories, photos, memories about Jubilee Court that can help inform the art work at the end of the project.

2) Art workshops for residents; creating an opportunity for residents to learn new skills and contribute towards the making of the artwork. Working alongside a professional artist.

3)Production of final art work to be hung in the communal lounge at Jubilee Court

Follow us on Twitter @TWC_Projects for regular updates on the project.

Come and join us for the Let’s Play Final!Let’s Play is a project that has been running in schools, youth centres and community setting across Hounslow since the beginning of this year. The aim of the project is to bring people together through games. Be prepared for lots of fun and laughter!

Activities will run from 10am-12pm with a shared lunch of sandwiches, crisps and fruit from 12-1pm

This is a free event open to all ages

Parking on site is limited
Under 18s must attended with an adult
Please let the team know if you have any allergies.

Wow what an amazing two weeks! Over the last 10 days the TWC Team have run six incredible Let’s Play workshops across Hounslow and Greater London. To date we have worked with over 100 young people encouraging them and their families to get involved in the Let’s Play games.

On Saturday 2nd April we were lucky to be invited to the Southville Funday. Jennie Tweedy the Centre Manager for the Southville Community and Childrens Centre emailed us with this great feedback:

“I just wanted to say a big thank you for coming to our event on Saturday, the feedback was great. The team were helpful, professional and most of all fun and the children had a great time. I spent yesterday afternoon trying to get a biscuit from my forehead into my mouth without using my hands and we had a great lot of fun and laughter thanks to such a simple game.”

Jennie’s Colleague Samantha added “You engaged with all the children and us adults too with your brilliant games. Your Team are fantastic. All of you have the wow factor!!

The Lets Play workshops will continue across April and May culminating with a Let’s Play Celebration Event on Saturday 21st May at Hounslow Youth Centre.

We have already had a busy start to 2016! Since the New Year we have been running Tech Talk, a fantastic new project working with 18 Software Development and Coding students fromWest Thames College to develop Apps for the greater good.

With our world becoming more and more App-centric, we wanted to run a project that not only teaches skills in Apps and App development, but also inspires people to develop Apps that can support the wider community. Tech Talk delivers just this.

Our project is based on the hugely successful Apps for Good programme and in typical TWC style, we have put our own spin
on it. To inspire our students further, we enrolled a number of
professionals working in the world of Software Development, Coding and App production to support each workshop. Our volunteer techies have been on hand to answer technical questions, refine ideas, share their tips of the trade and advise on how a successful career can be made with these skills.

Since the start of the project our students have been developing some fantastic ideas for new Apps. One such idea has been a weather App which tells you what clothes you should wear to match the weather outside – a great idea I think we would all agree!

On the 2nd March, our students will present their best App ideas to a Dragons Den Panel of leading tech professionals. Good luck to all students. We look forward to sharing their ideas with you in due course.

Thanks go to the Heathrow Community Fund for
kindly supporting this project, and to our wonderful volunteers who has helped to make this a truly fantastic and inspirational project.

Remember playing hide and seek? Tag? Jump rope? At TWC we love playing games, and we believe that play and leisure activities perform an increasingly important role in developing communities, combating social exclusion and disadvantage, and increasing opportunities for bringing people together. It was with this in mind that we developed a new project called Let’s Play in partnership with the London Borough of Hounslow. and Thames Valley Housing Association

The Let’s Play project is centred on the role of sports and leisure in the context of play, community engagement, empowerment and development. Adapting traditionalplaying games, we will be running a series of play-themed community events, designed to engage and equip local community groups and individuals of all ages with the tools, places and inspiration to make play accessible and a priority for everyone.

Talking about the project, TWC Founder, Sarah, explains; “As a charity we strive to create a positive and inclusive environment where everyone is valued and achievements are celebrated.This project contines our commitment to support communities across the London Borough of Hounslow. By developing this new and innovative programme our hope is that we can make community engagement simple and accessible to all”

The project will be running from March to May.Keen to join in? To help get you started, we have developed the totally unique, Let’s Play games book which will be published end of February. Please email Hello@togetherwecreate.org.uk for a copy of this book. Every participant will receive a Play Book.

Thanks to the generous support of the Hounslow Community Grant and our team of volunteers who have helped make this project possible.